Bicycling Feet, Meet Your Power Player, Pedaling Legs
“Foot pain is experienced by 17% to 42% of the adult population. It is disabling in nearly half of these cases and can impair mood, behavior, risk of falls, self-care ability and quality of life.”
Understanding the nature and mechanism of foot pain. Journal of Foot and Ankle Research (2009)
Foot Function Flummoxed
Many of us are all familiar with the folktale of the lion with the thorn in its paw. Yes, even the mightiest of us can be sidelined by pain or poor function in our feet!
Restoring foot function after a medical procedure
Our YouTube guest this week is Daniel, an avid cyclist. He had a plantar growth form on the front pad of his foot, and this impacted his ability to walk smoothly. It also impacted being able to put pressure into his pedaling. Our session takes place 5 weeks following a medical procedure addressing remaining mobility concerns.
In this episode you will see what the foot pain caused in terms of compensations — it’s more than you might suspect. We also go through re-establishing a multitude of relationships that the foot should have with the leg. It really is more complex than just pointing and flexing!
The last part of the video shows some finesse used to link his foot and leg back up to create the power needed for pedaling. Enjoy watching the changes!
A week after his Bridging® session
A week later, Daniel reported that he was able to return to cycling the day after our session. The gimp and pain with walking were gone immediately. Within days he back up to his normal 5 miles per day. Fantastic!
Let’s use the Bridging® framework to breakdown Daniel’s foot issue
To help understand why an injury is not recovering as expected we look to the past for additional clues. A prior injury often provides insights into how, where, and how long the body has been compensating.
The primary concern was recovering the power for biking. All the pain and compensation of the plantar growth and subsequent surgery threw off posture, gait and cycling ability. His emotional outlet is cycling, so returning to the streets was highly important.
What else may be playing a role inhibiting recovery?
In addition to the compensation before and after the procedure, there is one more event that came into play. Daniel was hit by a car about 10 years ago, in the same leg with the foot issue.
The prior trauma makes his muscle coordination somewhat fragile. This likely played a role in the disjointedness causing the weakness sensation in his leg.
Bridging his micro-movements put the effects of the traumas, past and present, back together. Glad to know he’s feeling good!
Curious … have you had an injury or medical procedure, and still waiting to get back to normal? Fill out our intake form and we’ll get back to you with insights on how Bridging® can help.